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Women sold as sex slaves in Heathrow
Hundreds of young women are being traded as sex slaves at London airports in a billion-pound trafficking and prostitution racket.
- By Richard Edwards, Evening Standard
- Published: 00:00 April 23, 2006
London: Hundreds of young women are being traded as sex slaves at London airports in a billion-pound trafficking and prostitution racket.
Gangmasters are exploiting budget airline flights to discreetly traffick women to Heathrow, Gatwick and Stansted airports from eastern Europe.
At least one such victim arrives every day while others are brought in overland on bus routes arriving at Victoria station.
The women are promised a job as a waitress or a hotel maid. Instead they are sold as a sex slaves for about £2,000 (Dh13,000) each. Gangmasters often rape and beat the victims before imprisoning them in brothels and taking every penny they make.
At Heathrow, a specialist team of officers is monitoring lone women arrivals and have identified potential victims as young as 15.
In October, a Serbian man was jailed for 21 years after it was revealed two teenage girls were flown in from Lithuania and "auctioned" to pimps outside the Costa Coffee shop at Gatwick Airport.
The girls, sold for £3,000 (Dh20,000) each, had thought they were going on holiday. Tasim Axhami, 19, repeatedly raped one girl and made her work as a prostitute in Sheffield until she escaped.
Scotland Yard chiefs admit "staggering" sums are being made by gangs of criminals controlling the brothels.
An estimated 1,000 flats, massage parlours and saunas across the capital sell sex with each able to make more than £2 million (Dh13 million) a year.
The Evening Standard has learned how police last week raided a discreet premises in a suburban street worth up to £3.5 million (Dh23 million). The Stratford Sauna, next to a church, attracts up to 100 men a day. Last night, as part of a major crackdown, officers closed another sauna in Tottenham, taking five women into refuge and arresting the suspected Turkish gangmaster.
He is one of several alleged leaders rounded up in the past few weeks.
Chief Superintendent Ian Dyson, head of the Met's Clubs and Vice Unit, said: "People underestimate the kind of money involved. The figures are staggering as is the human cost to the innocent women being trafficked and exploited."
Many of the victims are told they and their families will be killed if they try to escape. They are advertised in newspapers, on call cards and over the internet. The Stratford Sauna is next to St Francis of Assisi Catholic church and near the main stadium site for the 2012 Olympics. Twelve women work from midday to 5am.
Police found three Polish women, aged 21, 23, and 30, two Thai women, aged 24 and 64, two Lithuanians, aged 21 and 28, a 31-year-old Brazilian, a Romanian aged 31, a Swedish woman, 32, a Kenyan, 41, and a Briton aged 31.
However, none of the women admitted to being prostitutes and as yet police do not have enough evidence to convict suspected gangmasters.
Other recent operations run by the Clubs and Vice Unit have led to multiple convictions.
Case study
Russian, 17, locked up against her will
Russian teenager Natasha was locked up against her will at 17 and forced into prostitution.
Billed on an internet site by her pimp as "London's youngest prostitute", she was forced to work in massage parlours in the West End, Hendon and Sudbury.
In 2004, Natasha answered an advert in a newspaper saying "work abroad for good money". She met Vera, who promised her work in Spain as a waitress. Natasha never went to Spain.
She was sold for £6,000 (Dh39,000) and ended up in London. Kosovan Niki Dimitrov, 29, raped her, took pornographic pictures and posted them on the internet. Natasha was expected to have sex with up to five men a day. She is now studying at London University. She said: "It's unreal to think I was a slave not so long ago."
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